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Essay 68 (4-12-05)

VI. The Sunset Years (1855-1866)

"Do we live for time or for eternity?"

Dedicates a Book to His Wife

In 1861 - when he was 73 - he authored an impressive volume of 647 pages titled Popular Lectures and Addresses, issued by a Philadelphia publisher. While the essays were selected from those he had already published - primarily in the Millennial Harbinger - the book is witness to a continuing demand for his writings even in his declining years. In the preface the publisher refers to the author as "one of the most original minds and profound thinkers of the age," and as one who "throws new light upon whatever he touches." He went on to say that Alexander Campbell had "entered the great harvest fields of truth and observation and has brought home the riches of his herculean labors."

The essays selected bear witness not only to the wide range of Campbell's interests and areas of competence, but to his trust in ordinary people to apply their minds to weightier matters. The subjects included moral philosophy, capital punishment, war, demonology, phrenology, life and death, and philosophy of memory, as well as more common subjects like common schools, colleges, woman and her mission, and a Fourth-of-July oration.

He dedicated the book to "Selina Huntington Campbell, My Dutiful and Affectionate Wife, Who Has Greatly Assisted Me In My Labors In The Gospel, At Home and Abroad." This makes for an interesting footnote to Campbell history in that some historians have seen the second wife as caught in the shadow of the first.

Campbell married his first wife, Margaret, in 1811, only to lose her sixteen years later. She left five young daughters for someone else to care for. Selina was Margaret's younger friend who helped to care for her and the children during her prolonged illness. Margaret deemed it appropriate to suggest to her husband - in case he chose to marry again - that he consider Selina. He considered it. The next year - in 1828 - he and Selina were married. He, therefore, dedicated the book to his wife of forty-three years. Selina eventually - in 1882 -- wrote a book about her husband, titled Home Life and Reminiscences of Alexander Campbell By His Wife.

Memoirs of Thomas Campbell

Another volume he published during these year was Memoirs of Thomas Campbell (1861), in which he revealed some intimate scenes from the life of his pious father, who spent his last years in the son's home, and he was now blind. "Father Campbell," as they called him, would sit alone and quote Psalms and other favorite Scriptures for hours. He would ask visitors and family members to check him for accuracy as he quoted the Bible. J. W. McGarvey - a student at Bethany in those days who became an eminent leader - was one of the visitors called on. He afterwards recorded that the old man quoted lengthy portions of Scriptures without missing a single word!

Campbell used this book to put his father's Declaration and Address -- first published in 1809 - back in print, and he used the occasion to say something about that founding document. It was "the embryo" of the principles that forged their reformation, he allowed, and he claimed that he'd never read or heard the first objection - "plausible in the least degree" - to any position set forth in the document. He believed that it took the only plausible ground for the realization of the unity for which Christ prayed. He also used the book to tell the story of when he at last decided to be "evangelically baptized" back in 1812, his father joined him. It was the watershed event of their lives together

Translation of Acts

All through the years writing was apparently easy for him. He would usually have enough written before breakfast to keep his typesetters busy all day. This was not the case with an assignment he was given by the American Bible Union -- an agency created in 1849 by his own people for the purpose of publishing an accurate and readable version of the Bible. He was assigned the book of Acts, which in 1858 was published as a separate volume. He again used "immerse" for baptize - as in Acts 2:38 ("Reform and be immersed") -- as he had done in his own Living Oracles thirty years earlier, a point of controversy at the time. Nor does "church" appear in either translation -- it is "congregation" instead. These were eminently important distinctions to Campbell, however unpopular they may have been.

He worked so long and so arduously on this assignment that it substantially impaired both his mental and physical health. He complained in a letter to a family member: "I have been more oppressed and broken down with hard labor this year past than at any period of my life." He not only had the task of translating the Greek into English that corrected the errors of the Authorized Version, but he had to supply copious critical notes.

He gave up his farming duties for the time -- depriving himself of his usual exercise - and limited his work at the college and other duties. This went on for "many months" - until his friends began to notice a change in his behavior. In his public speeches he faltered for words and appeared to forget. In private conversation he was confused about events of the past, and at the college and the Harbinger office he had difficulty performing as usual.

While improvement came with his return to travel - which he always found to be a respite from pressures at home - it was the beginning of what some historians have referred to as his years of senility, particularly in the early 1860s. But senility was not as prominent or permanent as supposed. The facts are - in spite of some episodes of mental fatigue - he did some of his most meaningful travel and some of his most effective writing in this last decade of his life. This is evident in part by his publication output described above.

Even while he was working on Acts, he stole away long enough in 1855 for a trip to Nashville with his wife. But it was not exactly a vacation. His mission was not unlike that of a "bishop" -- which the Bethany villagers called him -- caring for an erring parish. Jesse B. Ferguson, popular young minister of the Christian Church in Nashville, was involving his church in the occult, and Campbell hoped to save both him and the church by open discussion. But Ferguson - who did not talk to the dead but did receive letters from them! - claimed to have received a letter from the late W. E. Channing, noted Boston Unitarian, telling him to have nothing to do with Alexander Campbell.

In spite of being unable to confront Ferguson personally -- "thwarted by a ghost," Campbell quipped -- the aging reformer was able to save the church from the threat of the occult. Ferguson tried preaching in a theater for a time, but was soon gone. The crisis affected all of Nashville, making it appropriate for Campbell to address a huge crowd at the Methodist Church as well as to minister to his own people at the Christian Church. Writing about this crisis afterwards in the Harbinger, he penned one of his most sublime essays about the sufficiency of the Christian faith. He asked how anyone -- "believingly immersed into Jesus Christ" - could turn from the great Teacher sent from God -- the Light of the world -- and consult with spirits of dead men on the pretense of more light.

Travel in Old Age

For the next several years - until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 - he traveled extensively in spite of his advancing age. In 1855 he was in Canada, eastern Virginia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. In 1856 he visited churches in Kentucky for forty-eight days, then to Ohio for annual meetings of the churches, and then to New York City for the annual meeting of the American Bible Union, one of his favorite agencies. He hurriedly filled an appointment in Danbury, Connecticut, and then to Cincinnati to address a literary society and attend meetings of the American Christian Missionary Society, also a favorite agency.

In 1857 he traveled widely in the South - as far as New Orleans - and returned home by way of Richmond and Washington, D. C. -- a total of 6,000 miles! He said the trip had two purposes: to plead the cause of original Christianity and to promote the interests of Bethany College. Later that year he was in Cincinnati again, then to Illinois and Iowa. In all these places he addresses churches filled to capacity - those of other denominations as well as his own.

Near the end of 1857 the main building of Bethany College was destroyed by fire. In order to raise funds for the erection of an even better edifice, it was necessary for him to travel even more. By now he admitted that he was tired and would rather stay home, but "I cannot rest from my labors till I am called also to rest with my fathers." He called on W. K. Pendleton - both vice-president of the college and his son-in-law - to go with him.

For the next several months they traveled far and wide among the churches -- both preaching and raising money for the college. In a letter to his wife from Kentucky in 1858, he revealed something of their method: "He preaches for the college, and I for the church." That must have meant that the vice-president made the pitch for funds, while he preached the gospel. They succeeded in their mission, and in 1859 the cornerstone was laid for one of the most impressive college edifices in the nation at that time. It still stands -- Old Main it is now called - and is registered as a national historic site.

While they were in Louisville the editor of the Louisville Journal wrote an editorial titled "Alexander Campbell." He described him as "venerable and distinguished," and as "unquestionably one of the most extraordinary men of our times." He went on to say that "His personal excellence is certainly without stain or a shadow," and that "No poet's soul is more crowded with imagery than is his with the ripest forms of thought." He concluded with, "In his essential character, he belongs to no sect or party, but to the world."

With Selina at his side, he continued his extensive visits among the churches -- from the spring of 1859 until the spring of 1861, when the outbreak of the Civil War brought his travels to a virtual standstill. In 1859 he was in the South again - Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana - and in Kentucky he again addressed the American Missionary Society for which he still served as president. They went on to Missouri and even as far as Kansas. He was always in demand and always had full houses - those of other churches as well as his own.

In 1860-61 he and his wife were accompanied by Isaac Errett on a demanding schedule in Indiana. It lasted for eight weeks, and Campbell averaged more than one address each day! He was now seventy-two. This long, arduous journey of 2,000 miles seemed to improve his health and vigor -- especially for one who was supposed to be senile!

Impact of Civil War

Isaac Errett was again with the two of them in the spring of 1861 on a trip to eastern Virginia - a journey cut short by the outbreak of war. When Campbell heard on April 12 that Fort Sumter had been fired on, he cancelled all further appointments and returned to Bethany. On his way back to western Virginia he was grieved to see ample preparations for the bloody conflict. He was by conviction a pacifist, and had long opposed his nation going to war. But he was not surprised. As early as 1840 he had predicted that it was inevitable - "The South will never surrender the institution of slavery without bloodshed," he had told a friend.

The war was devastating to Alexander Campbell. It did far more than curtail his travel, which was the heart of his ministry. Since much - if not most - of his patronage was in the South it decimated his outreach. There was no longer postal service to the South, greatly reducing his mailing list for the Harbinger, though it continued to be published. The enrollment at the college, also heavily dependent on southern patronage, was reduced to a shadow of what it had been. Both college and journal were in fact threatened to extinction. And, as noted above, he had a son involved in the conflict.

Moreover, his church was threatened by division into North and South -- as were other churches. And what was to become of his dream of "the millennial church" in this new republic - his adopted country -- called of God to usher in a new age of unity and peace in society and church alike?

In Spite of Old Age

But as the phrenologists had said all along - he had an indomitable will -- "stubborn as a mule," one of them supposedly said - so he would persevere through four years of war. He continued to travel, but now nearer home. He continued his morning lectures at the college -- at least for awhile longer - and he would continue as president - at least in name --until death. He continued to do his part of the preaching at the Bethany church. And he was yet to do some of his best writing in the Harbinger, and would continue as editor until 1864.

He still had a commanding and venerable appearance. His abundant hair and ample beard were now of silvery whiteness. He was still tall and erect, but by his mid-seventies he began to appear tremulous and enfeebled. He became increasingly forgetful. He would start to leave for the college for his morning lecture, only to be reminded that he no longer had to do that. Once in the pulpit at the Bethany church he was so confused that W. K. Pendleton urged him to step down and give place to Dr. Robert Richardson. But still he sat and listened to his physician friend with rapt attention. When his daughter - Decima Barclay - recounted her experiences in Cyprus and the Holy Land - he responded as if he himself had been there. And he would occasionally sit up in bed during the night and utter prayers and sermons as if he were in a public service - quite connected and relevant!

But such mental failures were occasional and temporary. He was usually his old self. Even in his last year he wrote letters of significant content, and published seminal essays in the Harbinger. He even made a trip to Louisville where he addressed two churches with such vigor and presence of mind as to surprise his friends. And when he gave what proved to be his last sermon on earth -- at the Bethany church only a few months before his death - his mind seemed "unusually alert and vigorous." His sermon - drawn from Ephesians 1 - was on one of his favorite themes -- the eternal purpose of God as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It was described as "one of the most interesting and animated discourses of his life."

His Harbinger articles during this time also indicated that he was still focused on his life's mission. An 1862 essay on "Union, Union, Union" once more issued an urgent call for the unity of all Christians, and he once more appealed to "the seven superlative facts" of Ephesians 4:4-6 as the grounds for that unity. These seven facts are not opinions, theories, or speculations, he insisted, but they are "the die and cornice of the house of God" and the foundation of Christ's church. Unity on this foundation - facts - is practicable, he urged, but on any other foundation it is impracticable. But these seven facts unite only in an atmosphere of forbearance and longsuffering. He drew an illustration from the dreadful war that was raging between the states. Just as a nation cannot find peace without these virtues, so a church cannon preserve unity.

He had a penchant for writing prefaces -- one for everything he ever published, including all forty volumes of the journals he edited - and they were often autobiographical, even self-searching. In the 1864 Harbinger - two years before his demise -- he wrote his last preface, and it was introspective. "For forty years we have not been an unfaithful nor an unwatchful sentinel upon the walls of Zion," he mused. He had cherished the hope of ending his service beneath peaceful and hopeful skies, but how could he expect his "wily foe" to ever sleep in his work of evil and mischief? "The times are full of corruption," he wrote, "and the church is contaminated with the times." We must remember that we, as the people of God, are not of this world, he urged.

"Shall we see our long labors go down in the storm of an hour, and give ourselves and our charge, without an effort or struggle, up to the devouring elements? he asked his readers. He had his answer. While he and his people were in a perpetual war to the end, they would not give up. He issued a challenge: "Who are the faithful ones that stand ready to help us in this work?" While a weary-worn veteran, he wrote as if he had just begun to fight.

His Last Essay: As Seminal As Ever

The last article he ever wrote - November, 1865, four months prior to his death --remarkably anticipated the ground-breaking work of C. H. Dodd on the nature of the kerugma (preaching). Dodd -- a British New Testament scholar -- in a seminal book titled The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development (1937) distinguished between the didache (teaching) and the kerugma (preaching) in precise terms. The kerugma is the apostolic proclamation of the gospel as set forth in the sermons in Acts, he concluded. He ventured to list the propositions that made up the gospel. This message, Dodd noted, was the kerugma - the gospel preached by the apostles -- and is to be distinguished from the didache - the teaching of the apostles. He argued that what is called "preaching" in the modern church is not preaching at all in the New Testament sense, but teaching. Dodd's study provoked considerable debate in its time, and is today recognized as a milestone in New Testament studies. No one seemed to notice that Alexander Campbell had anticipated Dodd by seventy years!

In his article titled simply "The Gospel," Campbell did what he had not done before - and apparently what no other scholar ever did until Dodd - in that he listed precisely "the seven Facts that constitute the whole gospel." These are the birth of Christ, the life of Christ, the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ, the coronation of Christ. Dodd's and Campbell's lists are so similar that one might think Dodd was influenced by Campbell, but they are alike because both made their lists from the sermons in Acts.

Campbell, however, had interests different from Dodd's, whose concern was simply New Testament scholarship. Campbell's plea for unity was related to the distinction he made between preaching the gospel and teaching the apostle's doctrine. The gospel is made up of facts - which we accept or reject -- while doctrine involves theological opinion - and here we can and will differ. Believing and obeying the gospel unites us in Christ, and is the basis of our unity and fellowship. The apostles' teaching is the curriculum we study once we are enrolled in Christ's school. In that school we are in different grades and we can and will differ in understanding.

This distinction was so vital to Campbell that he presumed one could not have a proper understanding of the New Testament without recognizing it. It is not surprising, then, that he made it part of his very last essay.

New Heavens and a New Earth

In the last paragraph of this last essay he briefly details his view of the eternal state. The present material universe will be wholly regenerated. Of this we can be sure, he said, for He who sits upon the throne has promised, "Behold, I make all things new." Consequently, there will be new heavens and a new earth. This means, as he saw it, "new tenantries, new employment, new pleasures, new joys, new ecstacies." Then in his final line he recognized a limitation that included himself: "There is a fullness of joy, a fullness of glory, and a fullness of blessedness, of which no living man, however enlightened, however enlarged, however gifted, ever formed or entertained one adequate conception."

Hope was a constant theme in his essays and discourses all through the years. He often reminded his audiences that the "one hope" was among the seven facts of the gospel, and that it is faith, hope, and love that endure forever. It was an assurance that served him till the end.

His longtime friend and physician, Robert Richardson, called on him shortly before his death. He told him that the Reformers - meaning their people - and the Baptists were meeting in hopes of affecting a union between the two groups. "There was never any sufficient reason for a separation between us and the Baptists," the dying reformer told the doctor. He went on to say, "We ought to have remained one people, and to have labored together to restore the primitive faith and practice." Another visitor during this time - Joseph King, a fellow minister -reported that when he talked to Campbell about the unity meeting with the Baptists, the old reformer openly wept with joy over the prospects of such a union.

It seemed appropriate that even at death's door Alexander Campbell would be praying and talking - even weeping - about the unity of all God's people.

Bibliography

Campbell, Selina, Home Life and Reminiscences of Alexander Campbell. St. Louis: John A. Burns, 1882

Cochran, Louis. The Fool of God. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1958.

Cochran, Louis, and Garrett, Leroy. Alexander Campbell: The Man and His Mission. Dallas: Wilkinson, 1965

Fitch, Alger M. Alexander Campbell: Preacher of Reform and Reformer of Preaching. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1988.

Garrison, Winfred E. Alexander Campbell's Theology, Its Sources and Historical Setting. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Co., 1900.

Gresham, Perry. The Sage of Bethany: A Pioneer in Broadcloth. Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1988.

Lectures In Honor Of Alexander Campbell Bicentennial, 1788-1988. Nashville: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1988.

Lindley, D. Ray. Apostle of Freedom. St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1957.

Lunger, Harold L. The Political Ethics of Alexander Campbell. St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1954

Richardson, Robert. Memoirs of Alexander Campbell (2 vols.) Philadelphia: J. Lippincott, 1868.

Webb, Henry E. In Search of Christian Unity: A History of the Restoration Movement. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1990.

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